Tag Archives: Oscars Nominations

Set in 2025, Her follows Theodore Twombly, a lonely, sensitive, and almost divorced man who purchases a talking operating system designed to evolve and grow (think Siri, but with feelings). As time progresses, Theodore builds a friendship with Samantha (a name the OS picks out for herself), and his fascination with her thirst for life and knowledge soon turns into love.

The film opens with an extreme close-up of the bashful and vulnerable Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), who looks straight into the camera and pours his heart out in a stunningly genuine monologue to the love of his life.

The camera then zooms out and we find that Theodore works for BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, where he composes letters for clients that are having trouble connecting emotionally with their loved ones. He recites the heartfelt messages aloud, and they appear in beautiful handwritten scrawl on the computer before him.

The (not too) futuristic setting is easily the strongest part of the film. In the mere eleven years between now and 2025, the city skyline is utterly unrecognizable so much so that the location goes unspecified.

The entire film is visually stunning even in its most mundane moments (with a bold shade of red in about 99% of the shots), but it is the ease and normalcy with which people navigate their hyper-technological lives that pulls the (slightly baffled) viewers into the world.

For example, it is not unnatural for Theodore to be lying on the beach, chatting with his phone (with, not on). The video game he plays comes alive before his eyes and he’s able to converse with its characters. People are all muttering aloud on public transit, giving commands to their phones to check their emails, read them, delete them, and other such entirely human-capable tasks.

The film is satirizing the way we let technology do our heavy lifting, and how we rely on it to do a better job than we can do on our own. Why else do you think we all curse the technology Gods when our Wi-Fi flickers in and out? Or when we poke the frozen screens of our phones with annoyed fingertips utterly gobsmacked because—um, it’s not supposed to do that, it’s supposed to be here for us always.

We do treat our technology like living things, folks. It’s a sad truth.

The OS in Her is an artificial conscience that can grow based on experience. Theodore molds Samantha. She grows based on the tasks he gives her and the questions he asks her (‘check my email’, ‘what’s your name?). He gives her the desire to understand and feel, and leads her to utilize the entire body of human knowledge at her fingertips. She is given ‘life’ because of him. She is, in essence, a manifestation of Theodore himself, and his own wants and desires…which is a troubling concept given that they fall in love. (As the SNL skit says of the matter, ‘the future is weird’).

Joaquin Phoenix plays the lonely, introversion of Theodore to perfection. To put it as simply as possible—I believe him, which is not a statement to be taken lightly seeing as he spends 75% of this film in love with his phone. Scarlett Johansson voices Samantha and though she is also very strong, I am adamantly not with the large movement that suggests she deserved an Oscar nod. She voices an OS people.

Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde round out the cast with fairly forgettable performances, mostly because they play forgettable characters. However, they serve their purposes well by providing human-human relationships for contrast, and also the scale on which people judge human-OS relationships. (Weird sentence?)

Perhaps what I found most interesting about Her, is that the actual barebones love story would have been downright boring outside the confines of its bizarre setting. Basically, if it had been an entire movie of two humans navigating new love—the pivotal moments being waking up in the night to hear each other’s voice or meeting each other’s friends for the first time—I would have been asleep two minutes in.

But, as it happens, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I like my movies like I like my people—a little weird, emotionally complex and a lot of heart… (Oops. Is it too ironic that I just humanized an unhuman entity?)

Having said that, it is certainly not for everyone. It’s quiet, introspective and strange, but also incredibly deep and real. Honestly, I still don’t even know what to do with it.

In the moments when I relaxed into the movie—I believed it all, most particularly in a scene of bone-chilling panic that cemented the fact that technology still has its glitches even in this advanced society. But there were moments that could jar me out of that suspension of disbelief—like when they found a surrogate to play the part of Samantha’s non-speaking body so they could have a physical relationship, or when Samantha would call to say things like “come and lay with me”, following which Theodore would just lie on the bed next to his phone in utter contentment.

And then there were moments that just alarmed me entirely. As Theodore and Samantha’s relationship grows, the differences in their designs become apparent. He gave her life, but with the ability to learn and experience infinitely, Samantha can grow in a way that he never will.

Essentially, we are teetering on this horrifying precipice that while, yes, we do exert a measure of control over the technology we use, we are also reaching a point where technology will be able to ‘outknow’ us…and if you’re not appropriately terrified by that concept, I’m judging you a little bit.

This will undoubtedly win Spike Jonze the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and if it doesn’t I’ll be writing a strongly worded letter to the Academy… which I will be writing by hand since technology and its future now perturbs me a little.

I also think that with a less aged Academy, Her would win for Best Picture, but alas, I believe that this year it will go to 12 Years a Slave.

Stay tuned for our last week of Oscar Nominees reviews with American Hustle and Gravity.

“There’s gotta be something other than being a fisherman or kidnapping people.”“Maybe in America, Irish. Maybe in America.”

With the eerie resignation that has coloured his expression since his opening scene, Muse calmly utters these words to the frantic Phillips, and slowly lowers his weapon, marking what is easily the most poignant moment of the Oscar-nominated Captain Phillips.

Based on the incredible real-life story, Captain Phillips follows the hijacking of an American cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, by Somali pirates on its journey around the horn of Africa. Tom Hanks leads the cast as the stoic Phillips who, with stilted calmness, attempts to peacefully negotiate the raid of Muse (Barkhad Abdi) and his small band of pirates. As things slowly spiral out of Muse’s control, the pirates drop off the ship into one of its lifeboats with Phillips as their hostage. Bound for Somalia, and desperate for a payoff, they soon find themselves at the centre of a full-blown Navy SEALS rescue operation in the middle of the sea.

For me, the most captivating part of this movie was Barkhad Abdi’s performance as Muse. The character emits an eerie aura of normalcy for most of the film (or perhaps it’s more of an indifference), while his fellow pirates can’t control their fear or anger. This, coupled with his thin frame, made him seem strangely unthreatening despite his loaded weapon. I don’t mean to say the performance wasn’t believable, or that the threat wasn’t completely and terrifyingly real, only that Abdi brought subtle strokes of humanity to the character with his inexplicable indifference, moments of hesitation, and communication heavy stare-offs with Hanks’s Phillips, that had me feeling like he wasn’t truly a villain at all, much less evil.

I haven’t read the book that this is based on (A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by the real Captain Phillips), so I’m not sure if this was solely a movie decision or not, but I really enjoyed the way they chose not to paint any of the Somalis as inherently ‘bad’. They did an okay (though incomplete) job of contrasting Somalia and America at the beginning, and later gave brief flickers of the reality of Somali life (see dialogue above). It was mostly Muse’s apathy, though, that hinted at the very few options in life they were afforded.

The brilliance of Tom Hanks in any film tends to be either overly critiqued or entirely overlooked because, well, Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks. We hold him to a different standard, and there’s a sort of monotony to the unshakeable fact that he’s always that good. Even in roles we’d rather he hadn’t chosen, we get hypercritical or just ignore the film altogether…but in a loving, I’m-just-being-supportive-way because…Tom Hanks, don’t you know that you’re Tom Hanks? Get it together!

My point is, of course he was utterly phenomenal in this film—in fact, I had no doubt that he would be, but I definitely overlooked it in the moment. (I was far more interested in Abdi, the limo-driver turned Oscar-nominee—what can I say? I’m a sucker for a Cinderella story). However, Hanks could have earned an nomination for his performance in the aftermath—the shock of his rescue, his dry sobs hindered by a mixture of hyperventilation and incoherency, for his choked “the blood is not mine, it’s not mine”, and his breathless, desperate repetition of thankyouthankyouthankyou …But then again, he’s Tom Hanks, so I wouldn’t have expected anything less.

Lucky for the story itself, the film was entirely dependent on the performances of Hanks and Abdi, and thus was able to succeed with an entire supporting cast of two-dimensional characters. (I guess it’s possible that the crewmembers were intentionally not further developed out of respect for their real-life counterparts).

Either way, the strongest moments throughout the film—by far—were the heavy looks shared between Phillips and Muse, and the unspoken words of desperation and threat that hung in the air between them.

Billy Ray is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, but based on the excruciating exposition in the opening scenes (seriously, if anyone besides Hanks was delivering the lines, it would have been unwatchable), and the flat secondary characters, I’m not sure he deserves to win.

I could have done without the blatant Americanism that coloured the entire film, but I guess that comes part and parcel with a movie about a Navy SEALS rescue operation. Oh, and also every single movie that comes out of America ever.

But, when it comes down to it, I did thoroughly enjoy watching Captain Phillips. It won’t be winning the Oscar this year, but I can get behind the honour of the nomination.

And even though I think the odds are against him, part of me will really be rooting for Barkhad Abdi for the Supporting Actor category. His Cinderella story aside, he was genuinely the most intriguing part of this film for me. Plus HE’S the Captain now, ya know?

Damn. I made it so far without saying something silly. Welp, I tried.

Tune in on Tuesday to get the skinny on Nebraska. (Did I use ‘get the skinny’ in the correct context? It was just something new I thought I’d try…)

Despite the intentions of this blog, and indeed, our very title, the word “arsty” is probably not the most accurate way to describe us.

ThereIsaidit!

Whew. I feel better now.

I’m sure you’ve figured this out about us already…seeing as we tend to post raging gush sessions about fairly commercialized topics in the entertainment industry, rather than, you know, hyper-cool-because-they-not-commercial, fringe topics and other…artsy things?

Our twitter handle, as you know, is @WeArtsy, but really it should be more like “@WeExcitedAboutStuff” or “@WeTooObsessed” or “@LifeisCoolerForTheCrazy”… but let’s be real. None of those are quite as catchy.

This brings me to the actual point of this post. Throughout the next four weeks we will be reviewing all of the Oscar nominated films for Best Picture – ya know, to appear smarter and more cultured than usual.

But mostly for these two reasons:

Despite being avid award show watchers, neither one of us has ever watched all the movies in the Best Picture category before. In an ideal world, we’d like this year to mark the first Academy Awards where we could make informed decisions about who should win, when…potentially, we’ll just be spending waaaaay too much at the movies in the coming weeks. But hey, we choose to be positive.

We tend to gush too much (see above concession). Writing reviews of the nominees seemed like a way for us to reach back to the analytical skills we sharpened over the course of a very expensive four years of reading novels. (Re: University). Take that, world! We do have something to show for it!

(Side note: I do see the irony in admitting that we are not ‘artsy’ enough to live up to our name, and then somehow finding remedy for said affliction in reviewing some of the most glamourized, expensive and buzzed-about movies of the year. I see the irony, but I no longer wish to acknowledge it. Okay, thanks).

Anyhow, cynicism aside, we are actually pretty pumped to exercise our more analytic sides over the course of the next seven posts. We will rate each film, endeavour to review them free of spoilers for those of you who want to watch them for yourselves, and finally, share our predictions for the winners. Fun, yeah?

Welp, that’s all for now, artsies! (No, we’re not changing your name either!) Hope you’re as excited as we are for the next few weeks!